Sea Shepherd Finds Japanese Whaling Fleet: They Are On the Run Again

The Japan­ese whal­ing fleet is on the run again. The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety ship Steve Irwin re-locat­ed the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet at 0600 hours this morn­ing, Feb­ru­ary 23, 2008.

A few hours ear­li­er, the Steve Irwin had been side tracked when it chased a ves­sel that turned out to be a Namib­ian Tooth­fish ves­sel. The Antalles Reefer reg­is­tered in Walvis Bay was found at 0200 Hours. The ves­sel refused to give a fish­ing per­mit num­ber and threat­ened the Steve Irwin by report­ing that it was armed. The Cap­tain of the Antalles Reefer claimed to speak only Russ­ian. The Steve Irwin has a Russ­ian speak­ing crewmem­ber and dur­ing the con­ver­sa­tion the Cap­tain said he would resist with force if there was any inter­fer­ence with his oper­a­tions.

Cap­tain Paul Wat­son relayed the infor­ma­tion to the Aus­tralian Cus­toms ves­sel Ocean­ic Viking and report­ed that a sus­pi­cious tooth­fish fish­ing ves­sel was oper­at­ing inside the Aus­tralian Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone. At 0600 Hours, the Steve Irwin encoun­tered the Fukuyoshi Maru No. 68 which imme­di­ate­ly head­ed east­ward to lead the Sea Shep­herd crew away from the whal­ing fleet. The Steve Irwin con­tin­ued west and the Fukuyoshi Maru No. 68 turned and began to pur­sue the Steve Irwin. It is believed that the Fukuyoshi Maru No 68 car­ries armed Japan­ese coast guard offi­cers.

The Steve Irwin is now pur­su­ing the Nis­shin Maru and two har­poon ves­sels with the Fukuyoshi Maru No. 68 in pur­suit of the Steve Irwin. “The great South­ern Ocean whal­ing ship chase is on again,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “I don’t think any whales are going to be dying today. Our goal is to keep the har­poons qui­et for the next three weeks.”

The weath­er is good, the seas are calm and the chase is thread­ing its way south­west through an obsta­cle course of ice­bergs, growlers, and bergy bits. The Steve Irwin has plen­ty of fuel, water and pro­vi­sions and a crew that is com­mit­ted to shut­ting down the ille­gal whal­ing oper­a­tions of the Japan­ese fleet. “I can’t think of a place I would rather be right now,” said Jeff Hansen from Fre­man­tle, West­ern Aus­tralia. “See­ing the Japan­ese whalers run­ning like cow­ards from the Steve Irwin is a very sat­is­fy­ing expe­ri­ence.”

The chase is tak­ing place some 80 miles north of the Shack­le­ton Glac­i­er off the coast of Queen Mary land, well inside Aus­tralian Antarc­tic Ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters.

On Jan­u­ary 15th, 2008, an Aus­tralian Fed­er­al Court ordered that Japan­ese whal­ing be “restrained” in Aus­tralian ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters. The Sea Shep­herd crew is act­ing to enforce that court order and to uphold numer­ous inter­na­tion­al reg­u­la­tions that the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet has and con­tin­ues to vio­late.

For pre­vi­ous cov­er­age on the Sea Shep­herd see the UK Indy­media fea­ture arti­cle.

http://www.seashepherd.org